


N Is For Nostalgia

by kashmir



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-14
Updated: 2006-03-14
Packaged: 2017-10-09 02:12:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/81851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kashmir/pseuds/kashmir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For the <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/letter_love/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://community.livejournal.com/letter_love/"><b>letter_love</b></a> challenge. Could loosely be considered a sequel to <a href="http://kashmir1.livejournal.com/389671.html">A Is For Appearance.</a></p>
    </blockquote>





	N Is For Nostalgia

**Author's Note:**

> For the [](http://community.livejournal.com/letter_love/profile)[**letter_love**](http://community.livejournal.com/letter_love/) challenge. Could loosely be considered a sequel to [A Is For Appearance.](http://kashmir1.livejournal.com/389671.html)

He found her sitting on one of the catwalks above the cargo bay the next evening. Or what passed for evening out in the black. She was still wearing the same pair of overalls she'd worn to dinner the night before.

He was still unwilling to admit they had any effect on his insides.

She smiled up at him when she heard him approach.

"Glass of Kaylee's fine engine-fermented wine, Captain?" She asked, eyes sparkling and voice slightly slurred.

"Miss Serra? Are you... drunk?" He asked, incredulous. He sat down next to her heavily. Between this and the overalls, his tidy little vision of Inara Serra was just going to hell in a hand basket.

"I do believe I am, Mal. I haven't been drunk since... Probably before I left the training house. I was perhaps seventeen at the time. My roommate and I had gotten a hold of some rice wine and some sake. We drank and laughed all night," She sighed and leaned into Mal's shoulder, hands gesturing as she talked. Mal stiffened for a moment before relaxing and letting his arm slide around her shoulders.

"Sounds pretty typical for a girl of seventeen. Bet you were gigglin' over some defenseless boy or ridiculous dresses or other such frilly non-sense, weren't ya?" He asked, looking down into her now upturned face.

"We were," She nodded solemnly. "Frivolous and giggly. That was me at seventeen. Then, then I had to grow-up. Which is not so much fun. Some days, I just want to be that girl again. No worries or cares in the world."

She paused and snuggled into Mal's shoulder. "Being an adult is _go-se_."

Mal laughed and wrapped his other arm around her. "Well, I suppose it can be that, at times. I know my own self, some days I wouldn't mind going back to being a boy on Shadow. Sitting 'round the fire with some of the ranch hands while they told stories of the other worlds they'd been to, everything they'd seen. Probably some of the happiest memories of my childhood, right there."

She sighed again and wrapped a hand in his shirtfront.

"Mal?"

"Hmm?" He murmured, absently stroking her arm with his callused hand.

"Do you remember the party with Atherton?" She whispered.

"Little bit hard to forget my very first and, hopefully, last duel. Why?" He looked down at the top of her head again.

""S no reason," Her voice was getting lower and her speech more slurred. Mal had a feeling he'd be carrying one passed-out Companion to her shuttle very shortly. "Just.. I liked dancing with you. You're a good dancer. For a pirate. That was my favorite part."

Mal sat shocked for a minute. He wanted to tell her that dancing with her had been his favorite part of the evening as well.

But when he opened his mouth to tell her so, all that came out, in a strangled and not at all manly tone, was, "A PIRATE?!?"

Inara's only answer was a delicate snore.


End file.
